Mabel Molanphy

Dear Mabel–

I’m sad it’s been so long since I’ve post­ed. You see? I’m busy. And I don’t want to be so busy, but I am. I hope it makes sense to all of us, some­day, why I am. I’m try­ing to fin­ish my col­lege degree…it will have tak­en me 18 years. Wow. I also do a lit­tle part-time job, to earn mon­ey to buy things so I can home­school you. When we men­tion school, you say that you don’t like the part about say­ing good-bye to Mama, it makes you sad. So, you’re here with me. Right now, you’re play­ing with your mag­net­ic dol­lies, that Grand­ma bought you. You’re so hap­py. You just fin­ished glu­ing togeth­er some papers, then cleaned it all up by your­self. Some­times you wan­der to me, while I’m on the com­put­er, and ask me to read you a book. Some­times you just want to sit on my lap. I look at pho­tos of when you were a baby, and I miss those days. Like I’ll miss these days. Dad­dy and Mama want to give you a sib­ling, but it’s not our choice, real­ly. We wish it were. We’re so glad you’re hap­py. We’re so glad you’re here with us. Dear Mabel, I love you.

eter­nal­ly your mama

Today is Sat­ur­day, and that means Dad­dy and Mabel get to play Legos togeth­er. It’s prob­a­bly my favorite thing to do with her, and it’s always cute to walk into a room where she has orga­nized all the Legos in rows – one row of toys for her, and one row of toys for me. 

I am always hap­py to see her cre­ations and imag­i­na­tion at play. She’s quite detailed (as you can see here) and is always mak­ing fun­ny lit­tle things. My favorite in this video is the heli­copter with wheels! 

As you can imag­ine, cre­ativ­i­ty is an impor­tant part of our lives, and we encour­age Mabel’s cre­ativ­i­ty wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. She is con­stant­ly imag­in­ing new things, mak­ing up songs and sto­ries, build­ing things with Legos (awe­some), dress­ing up, etc. It is so reward­ing for us to see her devel­op her curios­i­ty, and of course, I’m proud as any dad­dy can be. That said, I fig­ured it would be good to cap­ture some of it here.

Mabel got to give her very first prayer in Sun­beams today. Mama and Dad­dy went, in case she need­ed help. She did­n’t. As soon as the song was over, she marched right up, climbed up the podi­um, bowed her head and said, “Dear Heav­en­ly Father. This is a Sun­beams class and thank thee for all these Sun­beams. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” Then she marched back to her seat and sat down. Mama was so proud! Oh, and right before she gave the prayer (on behalf of the entire pri­ma­ry), she tells her teacher, “I did a prayer in Span­ish” (which she did last night, before bed.) We had an audio clip, but David is still work­ing on upload­ing it.

Before nap, she said her prayer for Aunt Mindy, “Dear Heav­en­ly Father. Aunt Mindy has an owie on her neck. She is *real­ly* sad. Could you please help her with that? In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” fol­lowed by, “Now Aunt Mindy will be hap­py!” Aunt Mindy has a bulging disc in her neck; we had a fam­i­ly fast and prayer for her.

I love her prayers. I love her con­fi­dence. I love her sweet faith and tes­ti­mo­ny of her Father in Heav­en and Jesus.